I get nervous around those big stemmed margarita glasses. They are awkward and top heavy. I can barely drink a cup of tea, stone cold sober, without spilling a generous amount all over myself. Add tequila and (ideally) some drowsy, sunny catnapping and a heavy, tippy glass into this equation and I am invariably going to make a mess. It's not a super dignified look. Obviously, you should serve these margaritas however you like, but I think they are best in a sturdy and unprecious tumbler. No unnecessary stemware stress.

It's coming up on the abundant zucchini time, the overflow of showy blossoms and bulbous squashes. If you are growing it in your garden, it's easy to turn from delight at the zucchini bounty to panic at the onslaught of seemingly endless squashes.

Oh my god, do you guys know about dishwashers? They are pretty great. I just moved into a new apartment with many lovely features, including a backyard & garden in which I have some little sprouts growing and some really nice stained glass windows and a big lovely kitchen with a dishwasher! This thing just washes your dishes for you. I can sit and have a cup of tea, and the dishes are being washed by a robot. It's the best thing ever. I can't recommend it enough. I feel like I have won the lottery, but more so. I shall endeavour to never live dishwasherless again.

I think cake is almost always way too sweet. Super sweet frosting without any obvious flavour other than slick, fatty, sweetness with the faintest whiff of a mirage of vanilla. I never liked super sweet cakes and I think that's why I like to make cake. I want cake to be its best self. Floofy and light and flavourful and intense and not quite so damn sweet all at once. It is possible! This cake combats over sweetness in two ways: super tart and thick lemon curd, combined with extra strength lemon syrup soaked cake layers; and a fluffy, tangy whipped cream cheese frosting.

So I realize that I just told you about a great green sauce that goes with everything: chimichurri, in the chimichurri potato salad recipe. But there is another easy, versatile and extremely morish green sauce I have been eating a lot lately. You really should have both of these sauces in your life. To smear over everything and make it all better.

Sometimes in my head, I imagine a great thing that I'm sure I can do in the real world and it's definitely going to work out, no problem! And sometimes these imaginings do work out pretty well, and sometimes they are huge disasters. I did this last week. I had been turning around the idea of a preserved lemon cocktail in my head for a while and it sounded great. I was a bit worried about saltiness, but I figured I would soak the lemons and reduce the salt. Then I would turn them into a syrup that was sweet and just faintly salty and with that great, perfumed lemon-but-also-not-quite-lemon preserved lemon flavour. My dream cocktail was amazing. I would add basil and make an excellent, uniquely sweet and savoury, fragrant, sophisticated summer lemonade cocktail delight.